SENATE DESCENDS INTO THE NINTH RING OF HELL
Martin Luther King Jr. would groan in his grave if he knew what villainy the Senate was up to Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised to force a vote on the Democrats’ Voting Rights Bill by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The holiday has passed, the bill hasn’t. Why? Dino Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona wouldn’t dare violate the filibuster rule—a self-imposed hobble not called for in the Constitution—that protected “minority rights.” Of course they did make an exception recently in raising the debt-ceiling…but hey!—that was about big bucks and the world economy, not some minor domestic quibble over voting rights. (As Omar the rugmaker said, “…take the Cash, and let the Credit go, / Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!”)
Lending their whole-hearted support to the cynical pair were all 50* Party-of-Lincoln Republicans, many of whom nevertheless threw bouquets of verbal flowers on the memory of the slain civil rights martyr on his birthday.Here are a few of those choice Senate GOP “tributes” from Jan. 17:
Nearly 60 years since the March on Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message echoes as powerfully as it did that day. His legacy inspires us to celebrate and keep building upon the remarkable progress our great nation has made toward becoming a more perfect union.
—Mitch McConnell (R), KY
Dr. King was a true fighter for social justice who believed in the potential of America. His vision for our nation was best summed up by his quote—‘We may have all come on different ships but we’re in the same boat now.’
—Lindsey Graham (R), SC
We honor the life & legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He courageously called on his fellow Americans to ‘lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.’ We remember the sacrifices he made to secure liberty for every American.
—Ted Cruz (R), TX
‘When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.’
Dr. Martin Luther King (1963)
—Marco Rubio (R), FL
Leave it to the GOP to turn mere hypocrisy into a vomit-inducing obscenity. Moscow Mitch didn’t allow any of his 50 thralls to vote for the Freedom to Vote Act or the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, both of which were killed (52-48) in the Senate Wednesday. When President Biden criticized the new voter suppression laws passed in Georgia, Lindsey Graham took out the tried and true Republican dog whistle and rebuked the president for “playing the race card.” Tex Cruz, the less-than-courageous Cancún Clown, gave a much more effusive tribute to King back in 2015; be sure to take two antacid tablets before reading. Marco Rubio’s quote is cut from MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech; you would never guess that Little Marco introduced legislation along with far-right senators Kevin Cramer (R), ND and Mike Braun (R), IN to “prohibit federal funding to promote divisive concepts, such as Critical Race Theory.”
Enough of your canned slop! Put your vote where your mouth is, senators! And listen to what the man you’re celebrating had to say, back in 1963, about your “legislative victory” Wednesday:
I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. They won’t let the majority senators vote. And certainly they wouldn’t want the majority of people to vote, because they know they do not represent the majority of the American people. In fact, they represent, in their own states, a very small minority.
Take that you posturing naysayers who shame a legislative body that glories in being called “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Even in that grandiose self-description there’s a tiny irony to be savored. That lofty description of our upper chamber comes from no less (and I do mean less) than James Buchanan, our fifteenth president, widely considered by historians to be the worst president we’ve ever had and frequently blamed for allowing our Civil War to happen. And more to the point, he was a senator before that. That amounts to self-praise you say? Well, yes, but today’s senators need something to see them through those tedious, interminable days of doing nothing.
*Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska did commit to vote “yes” on the John Lewis bill, but was spared the trouble because it never reached the floor for an up or down vote.